Miranda July and Raymond Carver

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I drove to the doctor's office as if I was starring in a movie Phillip was watching--windows down, hair blowing, just one hand on the wheel.  When I stopped at red lights, I kept my eyes mysteriously forward.  Who is she? people might have been wondering.  Who is that middle-aged woman in the blue Honda?  I strolled through the parking garage and into the elevator, pressing 12 with a casual, fun-loving finger.  The kind of finger that was up for anything.  
--from The First Bad Man, a novel by Miranda July (Scribner, 2015).  The book is also for sale in The First Bad Man Store, where items mentioned in the novel were auctioned off, with proceeds going to The National Partnership for Women and Families.

THE ESSENCE OF RED

$159.48

SOLD!

“Dr. Broyard rattled open a drawer full of tiny glass bottles and picked one labeled red. I squinted at the perfectly clear liquid. It reminded me a lot of water.

'It’s the essence of red,' he said brusquely. He could sense my skepticism." 

—The First Bad Man, page 3 

Packaged with excerpt; authenticity verified with Miranda July’s signature. 

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Earl Ober was between jobs as a salesman.  But Doreen, his wife, had gone to work nights as a waitress at a twenty-four-hour coffee shop at the edge of town.  One night, when he was drinking, Earl decided to stop by the coffee shop and have something to eat.  He wanted to see where Doreen worked, and he wanted to see if he could order something on the house. 
--From "They're Not Your Husband," a short story by Raymond Carver, first published in the Chicago Review, Volume 24, Number 4 (Spring 1973) and reprinted in his collection Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? (McGraw-Hill, 1976).  The story appears on pages 22-30 in the Vintage edition from 1992.